Art Deco

[Rene] Lalique was, however, successful in showing women that well designed, well-executed settings were of supreme importance in judging the elegance and effectiveness of a jewel. He also popularized the use of substances other than gold and precious stones. When the 20s were in full swing, Anita Loos’ delicious heroine, Lorelei Lee, could echo generations of her predecessors in noting that diamonds were still indeed a girls’ best friend. Yet both diamonds and their settings had changes in the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth century. Where the jeweler of the 1870s had at his command little more than brilliant or rose-cut diamonds, the years that followed had popularised a variety of cuts, including square, emerald, ear, table, marquise, and navette. The mark of the 20s was, however, the baguette, often in conjunction with other cuts or stones, its shape and sparkle ideal for the geometric shapes the jewels were increasingly adopting.

-Art Deco by Victor Arwas